Well for one day,  according to TG Daily reporting satistics provided by Net Applications Safari is listed with a 10.91% share of the browser market on 28 February 2009.  This seems to be due to rapid uptake of the new beta version of Safari which is estimated to have been downloaded 11 million times over four days.

It is important to be careful when reviewing this type of browser statistics as there is generally some sampling bias as figures are collected from sites using their products.  However, it does highlight the importance of Safari.

Net Applications figures for the month put Safari’s market share at 7% overall which is a significant number of people even discounting the latest boost from the beta.  However, it should be noted that their figures place the market share of the mac operating system at nearly 10%.  This suggests that mac users may be more likely than microsoft users to switch from the browser packaged with the operating system to firefox or another browser.

Analysis: Safari 4 lifts Apple above 10% browser market share

Browser Market Share

A recent article on the Specyboy blog provides a summary of some of the most useful firefox plugins for web designers.  These include the excellent web developer extension which I have used for several years.  A lot of the other plugins perform tasks already covered by the web developer plugin, however there is the odd interesting one.  These include abduction a screen capture tool and  extended status bar which provides information on load speed.  The full list can be seen here, 27 Indispensable Web Design and Development Firefox Extensions.

Micro-blogging is a phenomena that has seen massive growth over the last couple of years. These sites allow users to provide short text messages updating people on there status and what they are up to.  There are a large variety of these sites including ones with novel features such as emotionr which allows users to rate how happy they are and provides statistics on global happiness.  However, one of the most successful is twitter, in fact it has been integrated into the Userxp site.

The success of Twitter comes down to three main factors; Their ability to quickly build their user base before their competitors, that they provided free sms updates (something no longer available in the UK) and that they allowed developers to produce their own applications.  One such application is Twistori a site that displays twitter updates containing ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘feel’ or ‘wish’.  Although of little practical use it is none the less facinating to watch and allowing this type of creativity certainly helps promote the twitter site.

Most Returned Products Work Fine, Study Says

Download day 2008

It has only been a year and a half since the release of firefox 2 and with Internet Explorer 8 also in development it seems the current level of competition is helping drive the development of improved, standard compliant products.

User generated content can have several advantages, it involves users in the site, means content is frequently changing and can encourage users to promote the site to others.  However, it also has a down side in that it can provide the opportunity for those dissatisfied with your brand, site or actions to speak out.

Chevy discovered the negatives of user generated content when they tried to get people to create their own adverts for the Tahoe using video clips and music they had created. People used the clips to bash Chevy and the fuel economy of there vehicles. Although not as extreme, users could be seen using the mash up functionality to criticize the site this week.

A user has used the cartoon above to post the message “Who cares about mash ups? All we want is a simple fast web site to read Dilbert! This new site sucks. Bring back the old web site!!”.

It isn’t uncommon for site redesigns to have some negative responses even if improvements are for the better. Regular users get use to where content is and the design and are put off by change. This is one of the reasons why it is important to manage change, informing users what’s happening, introducing ways to feedback and when possible making incremental changes.

This comment also highlights an important point, just because there is extra web 2.0 features does not mean users are willing to put up with poor performance on key functionality. Why it was decided to display the cartoons on the home page within a flash area is incomprehencible when an image would do much the same job more efficiently. The use of the ‘beta’ will also do little to appease users when they had a perfectly good site before.

It uses machine learning techniques to recognise 3-d structures, such as the slope of mountains or branches of trees. Apparently, it can take a bit of time to generate the models. You can create models with your own photographs and learn more at Make 3D.

Apparently, hypersonic sound is a process by which sound is converted into an ultrasonic signal. This has the advantage that the sound can be broadcast in a beam at a specific location. It also means sound does not spread out the side and rear of the speaker creating unwanted noise pollution. When the ultrasonic bean hits a surface it makes it resonate. This includes the head of a potential listener causing them to hear the sound. This means it is able to play sounds or voices in very specific locations so they seem to almost come from within the listener’s head.

I have to say I was quiet sceptical whether hypersonic sound was real as the use of hyper and sonic was just too star-trek to be true. The original article also made me paranoid of the technology which was ironic as it described how hypersonic sound was used together with bill boards to promote a TV show called paranoid state. However, a quick search failed to produce anything to discredit so for now I will reserve judgement.

The article on the ‘paranoid state’ billboard: Schizophrenia is the new ad gimmick

More about hypersonic sound

Thanks to an American based company I may well be able to choose what functionality appears in my phone. Bug labs has started to sell a module based mobile device that allows users to pick and choose what they want it to be able to do. It may turn out to be a bit complex for most users and lack the styling or usability of modern phones, but a lovely idea none the less.

Springwises article : Build your own mobile